This last weekend I took a trip to Wales, which consisted of many place names that I can't for the life of me pronounce (because they're Welsh) and lots of beautiful scenery. The one thing I did figure out with Welsh is that 'll' is pronounced 'cl', like in 'clap'. Other than that, I'm still totally lost on the language, though all the signs are in both Welsh and English, which I think is pretty cool. And Welsh is an interesting language to hear spoken. Very different from what I'm used to hearing.
So we left on Friday morning on the coach, stopping in Chester, England, which is on the Welsh-English boarder, for a couple of hours. The first thing we did when we got there was go see the Roman Amphitheater that was just excavated in 2007 or something really recent like that. Only half of it is currently excavated because the people who own the building that's sitting on top of the other half won't sell. But even seeing half of it is pretty cool. I was walking around with an Archaeology double major, so it was really funny to see how excited Rachel got over seeing this and walking around in it! While we were waiting for the bus later on, Alayna decided to jump into the pit instead of taking the stairs and get a picture taken of her getting attacked by stuffed animals. It's quite an interesting picture! After the Amphitheater, we went and walked along part of the medieval wall surrounding Chester. It's the most complete medieval wall in Britain! And it was really neat to be able to walk along it. We then ate our sack lunches that we picked up from the Refectory in the morning and did a bit of shopping with the time we had left. We went into this really awesome paper store and I bought a great gift for Mindy and a thank you card for someone else. Then we saw the Disney store, so of course we had to go in. I love looking at all the Disney stuff and it was really hard not to buy everything! We went into a couple of other stores as well, and I also got my friend Ellen a present.
After Chester, it was back on the coach and into Wales, to a seaside town called Llandudo, which was where our hotel was located this weekend. Alayna and I got really excited when we got to our room because we had a view of the sea! Our hotel was located on the road right in front of the beach. The first thing that we did when we went out was to go walking on the beach, which was kind of difficult because it was low tide and there were a lot of rocks and water was left over! But I managed to get everywhere we were walking without getting my feet wet. Down by the sea, Alayna put on her swimsuit and sunglasses over her jeans and sweater to take a picture (she was also wearing a hat and gloves). It made for quite an interesting picture! After getting our fill of the sea, we walked back to the street behind our hotel, which is where all the major shops and restaurants are located. We went wandering in and out of the stores. I bought my customary key-chain and a shirt and dress. So a successful day for me shopping-wise! Then we went to eat at an Indian restaurant. We got there pretty soon after it opened and we were the only ones there for half an hour! It was kind of awkward, because there were at least 4 waiters, and three of us. But the food was amazing! Chicken Tikka Masala is my new favorite Indian dish. Plus nan. You can never forget that. There are literally no bars or pubs open (other than old man pubs), so when we went out later that night looking for something to do, we ended up back at the beach, which was now high tide. It was fun to listen and watch it there in the dark.
The next day it was back on the coach and off to two other destinations, before returning to Llandudo for the night. Our first stop was Caernarfon. Caernarfon Castle was built by (English) King Edward I after he defeated the Welsh princes in order to subdue and intimidate the Welsh and to build strongholds in Wales. And this castle definitely would've accomplished those things! It is huge! A legitimate castle, not just one tower. We spend almost 2 hours there, just exploring, and I could've spent more time than that there, because I didn't even get to climb up all of the towers and everything. There are lots of random rooms that you think lead somewhere but really don't. And I climbed to the highest point in the castle, which is one of two twin towers at the top of another tower. The view of the town and surrounding countryside was amazing from there! I loved just being able to explore everywhere, and not have to listen to a tour guide or anything. There was an exhibit there about the Princes of Wales, and it included Prince Charles' throne from his investure, which occurred at Caernarfon Castle. I would gladly go back to the castle again. At the castle gift shop, I bought sheep poo air freshener (daffodil scent). We wandered in and out of a few shops before getting back on the coach and heading to our next destination.
We had a 2 hour or so stop at Llanberis for lunch and such. Since it was noon when we got there, our first stop was Pete's Cafe, reputedly the best cafe in the world. I had a cheese toastie and chips, which was good, but I've had better grilled cheeses (Night Sky in particular!). After that, the four of us split up, Alayna and Betsy going off in search of waterfalls, and Rachel and I heading up to the castle that's located on a hill/mountain. Llanberis is in a valley next to a lake, with mountains surrounding it. It is a slate mining town, though they don't do as much mining as they used to, but you can still see where mining took place on the face of the mountains. Dolbadarn Castle is just a big circular tower, located at the top of a steep hill, but it was still really fun to hike up to it and look at it! You could go about halfway up the tower and look out, which I thought was pretty cool. And the castle is made out of slate, so they definitely took advantage of the resources that they had there when they built it. And the view from the castle and the land surrounding it was amazing! So many good pictures!
We got back to Llandudo around 4, and the four of us went out shopping for a bit and then out to the pier to look around. There weren't really any of the shops or anything open on the pier, but it was fun to go out on it and see the town from the sea. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant, and the pizza was pretty good! We didn't even try to go out again that night, we just stayed in our rooms and talked and watched TV, finding some interesting shows to watch and/or introduce Alayna too (like Friends!).
Sunday morning we left, with two stops on the way back to Harlaxton. Our first stop was actually wrong. Heather thought that this was where Swallow Falls was (our first stop) but it definitely wasn't. So she took about 50 students on a little hike in the woods before calling Dr. Taylor, who usually does the Wales trip, to ask him for directions. She got it all figured out and we trekked back to the coach for another 5 minute ride to the real Swallow Falls. You had to pay a pound to go down to the falls, but it was totally worth it. The falls were absolutely beautiful. They're falling on all these rocks and there's trees and lots of green stuff growing on the shore beside it. Definitely worth the stop! We spent about half an hour there before going another 10-15 minutes down the road to the town of Betws y Coed, which was our 2+ hour lunch stop. We walked around in and out of souvenir stores and such before getting lunch at a cafe. Then we did some more walking and shopping and I found a good gift for my mom/parents. There were a ton of dogs out and I actually got to pet one! Well, the dog stuck it's head in my hand, so I guess it made me pet it, but I wasn't complaining! That was probably the highlight of my day! I miss being able to be with dogs so much! Betws y Coed seemed to be a hiking/mountain climbing town, since it's located in the middle of the mountain range there. Still very pretty. I could totally see Hogwarts being here too, instead of in Scotland! After getting our fill there, it was back on the coach for another 4 hours, with Chinese awaiting me in my room, courtesy of my friend/roommate. So much better than the roast that we have in the Refectory every Sunday!
I'm going to try to write just a general post about daily life here at Harlaxton sometime soon, but if I don't get around to that this week, the next thing you'll be reading about is Oxford, Bath, and Stonehenge!
No comments:
Post a Comment